Annie Albania wasn’t as lucky, however, taking a hard-fought 5-7 loss to reigning world champion Ren Cancan of China in the finals of the women’s under-51 kg class to settle for the silver medal.
“I’m proud of our fighters,” said boxing association executive director Ed Picson. “They really fought hard for the country.”
The win boosted the Philippine medal haul to three golds, with Albania adding a third silver on top of nine bronzes.
Only with a victory in chess, where the men’s team will be fighting for the gold against China Friday, can the country match its golden output in the Doha Asian Games in 2006.
With veterans Eugene Torre and Rogelio Antonio Jr. securing wins, the Filipinos repeated over favored India, 2.5-1.5, to secure at least a silver at the Guangzhou Chess Institute.
The 48-year-old Antonio, a 12-time national champion, trounced fellow Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran in board two, while Asia’s first GM Torre, still razor-sharp at 59, bested GM GN Gopal in board four.
The Chinese, fifth placers in the 2010 Chess Olympiad held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, also asserted their superiority over the Iranians, 2.5-1.5, in the other semifinal encounter.
PH trails Southeast Asian neighbors
The Philippines continued to lag behind its Southeast Asian neighbors with Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore grabbing more medals with two days of competition remaining.
“These medals are still a blessing,” said chief of mission Joey Romasanta. “Our athletes fought against high-quality opponents and we should be proud of them.
The two medals mean a financial windfall for Saludar and Albania.
Under the handsome incentives for the boxing team courtesy of business tycoon and national boxing chair Manny V. Pangilinan, Saludar’s gold is worth P3 million while Albania’s silver comes with a P1 million tag price.
The rewards are outside of the regular PSC incentives of P1 million for a gold and P500,000 for a silver.
Saludar was certainly worth his weight in gold—and his amount in pesos—as he peppered his Chinese foe with his favored left in the second period to take a 10-3 lead.
That should have been enough to cushion against the hometown edge that was expected to come into play.
Curiously, though, Saludar made Chang gobble up four straight left leads toward the end of the second round that didn’t register in the scoring, allowing the Chinese one last crowd-egged charge in the third.
But Saludar also made his right hand a factor, landing two straights in the middle of the Chang rally to cement the gold.
Albania thrifty with her punches
Albania may have paid for being thrifty with her punches early on. She set up a right straight with a jab but kept pawing around for openings that Ren refused to show.
The Chinese took charge late in the second period, catching Albania coming in twice for a 5-2 edge.
Albania started volume punching late in the third round and came within a point, 6-5, of Ren, who is a police officer outside the ring. But Ren again caught Albania off a counter for the final count.
In karate, Marna Pabillore, a long shot for the gold despite winning the silver four years ago in Doha, Qatar, crashed out of the podium after losing to Iranian Fatemeh Chalaki, 1-0, in the women’s under-55 kg repechage.
Pabillore started out strongly, winning her first two matches, including a 4-0 trashing of Kyrgyzstan’s Ramilia Eshmambetova. But she was drawn against Japanese Miki Kobayashi, who ended the Cagayan de Oro lass’ bid, 1-0.
Karate doesn’t automatically hand bronze medals to losing semifinalists, but instead makes them go through a repechage round.
Smart Gilas Pilipinas, meanwhile, began the process of salvaging whatever it could from its failed medal campaign by trashing North Korea, 99-69.
The national five thus booked a ticket to the battle for fifth place against Jordan Friday, in the process avoiding the ignominy of faring worse than the infamous record of sixth place by the PH five in the 1966 Bangkok Asiad.
In sepak takraw, South Korea crushed the Philippines, 21-14, 21-17 in a men’s preliminary match, while in wrestling, Cambodia’s Sotheara Chov outclassed Maribel Jambora, 3-0, who injured a finger during the fight.
Romasanta refuses to label the country’s stint in this quadrennial event as a failure, saying there’s a lot of lessons to be picked up from the PH participation.
“The first thing that stands out when we did a simple assessment was that we originally intended to send only 126 athletes to here,” said Romasanta. “All our medalists this year came from that list of 126 athletes.”
Francis T.J. Ochoa
First Posted 02:08:38 26/11/2010
Source:Gold for Rey, silver for Annie in boxing - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
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